


The Words Get Stuck In My Throat

by AbbyDebeaupre



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: ABOSAA, Angsty!Fergus, Da!Jamie, F/M, Fierce!Marsali, Missing Scene, TW: discussion of past sexual assualt, TW: discussion of suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:38:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbyDebeaupre/pseuds/AbbyDebeaupre
Summary: “They had knelt together by the spring, embracing, wet with blood and water, locked together as though he could hold Fergus to the earth, to his family by force of will alone, and he had no notion at all what he said, lost in the passion of the moment –until the end.” ABOSAA Chpt. 64





	The Words Get Stuck In My Throat

One week. 

 

It had only been one week since milord had pulled the knife from his hand and muscled him out of the water. If Fergus lived to 100, he would always remember how Jamie’s hands looked as they carefully cleaned and wrapped his wounds. Exactly the way Claire would have done it, had she been there. But she was gone-- or nearly so, dying of the illness that had spread from cabin to cabin all along the Ridge, killing indiscriminately.  After, shaking with fear and exhaustion, Jamie held him, rocking him like a babe. 

 

Fergus didn’t remember everything that was said. A combination of French, when Jamie remembered to speak it and Gaelic when he was too overcome to be burdened with the necessity of translation. The words poured out of him, the deep, rich Scots, in tones of anguish and desperation, a hint of anger but most of all love. 

 

So familiar to him, Fergus thought. Though it had been a long time since Jamie had wrapped him in such an embrace … 

 

_ The night before he turned himself into the Redcoats, perhaps? _

 

No, long after that, he suddenly remembered. A nightmare Fergus had aboard the Artemis. About Paris, about Jack Randall. 

 

_ Jamie woke him quickly, bringing him out of his bad dream and offering him a medicinal shot of brandy.  _

 

_ Fergus tried to talk about it, but he couldn’t. He started to cry instead. Jamie,  heedless of snot and tears, held him. After a time, Fergus felt a small bit of courage return to him.  _

 

_ “Faith.” He whispered. Jamie stiffened. Fergus could hear the small, painful smile in his tone. _

 

_ “Aye?”  _

 

_ “I have not asked it of you, milord, but can you ever forgive me?”  _

 

_ Jamie rose from the bunk and Fergus heard him moving about the room, then the flare of the oil lamp cast the cabin in an amber glow. Jamie sat down once more and gave Fergus his full attention.  _

 

_ “I never blamed ye for it, Fergus.”   _

 

_ “I thought perhaps that was the reason why you wouldn’t give Marsali and I your blessing.”   _

 

_ “No! Ye ken Laoghaire already wants my balls in a vice! Can ye imagine what she is going to say when she discovers Marsali wed to a man who--” _

 

_ “Who is a worthless gob of shite? I had hoped you might be happy for us, for me.  I think you are lying to yourself. You  _ do _ think it is my fault. So do I. Starting with what happened with Randall. If I had been on my guard as Murtagh instructed me or stayed put where you asked. If I kept my clothes cleaner or had taken a bath instead of laughing and running from Suzette, I would’ve looked like I was a servant from a great house instead of a brothel boy. He would have had some respect. Maybe if I hadn’t made eye contact or been faster or fought harder, he wouldn’t have hurt...he couldn’t have a..at..attacked...” _

 

_ “Raped, Fergus. Ye dinna have to be delicate on my account,” Jamie said flatly.   _

 

_ Fergus opened his mouth to reply but the look on Jamie’s face stole the power of speech from his lips and he couldn’t get the words out. They stuck in his throat and refused to come.  _

 

_ “You were a wee lad, doing as all boys do. You didna do anything wrong, Fergus.” Jamie told him.  _

 

_ “He picked me because he knew what kind of boy I was. I deserved what happened but you and milady suffered so much because of me.  And then after… you spent weeks in the Bastille because I couldn’t tell milady what had happened.” Fergus admitted. “I was a coward -- and that is why he picked me to… do what he did, and I am still a coward now because I can’t even speak of it. Perhaps you are right to withhold your blessing.”  _

 

_ “Fergus, this is no’ about what you wore or how ye looked or what ye might have done to make him decide to go after you. There is a devil in that man that no one can influence.” Jamie told him but Fergus remained unconvinced.  _

 

_ “Do ye think me a coward?” Jamie asked quietly.  _

 

_ “You are the bravest man I know.” Fergus told him honestly.  _

 

_ “Yet, I didna tell ye Randall raped me, even after he did the same to you. You never spoke of it and I am sorry, mo bheannachd, I never realized you needed to.” _

_ Jamie’s admission sucked all of the air out of the room. He nodded in confirmation when he saw Fergus’s wide eyes and flushed cheeks.  _

 

_ “We have the same nightmares.”  _

 

_ “It doesn’t happen often, this was the first time I’ve had that dream in years.” Fergus told him. “You?”  _

 

_ Jamie looked away for a moment. “In Paris many a time.  During the Rising, as each battle neared, it wasna worth trying to sleep. They came so often. Ardsmuir… well, surrounded by English guards and in fetters didna help. Since Claire’s return, not often.” Jamie grimaced when Fergus gave him a sad, knowing look. “Aye, well, I was at his mercy locked up in Fort William for a whole night. I ken what it is to feel that fear, the shame, and why you canna say the words.  You dinna owe anyone an explanation. I dinna speak much about it myself. To Claire now and again. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesna. There are weeks, months even when I don’t think of it but then something calls it to mind and I find myself shaking like a leaf, back in that cell, pinned and helpless beneath him. The past doesna rest easy.” Jamie watched Fergus digest this. “Ye trust my word?”  _

 

_ “Always.” _

 

_ “Then believe me when I tell you I dinna blame you for any of it. Not one thing that happened.” _

 

_ “Then why, milord? Why won’t you give Marsali and I your blessing?”   _

 

_ “I ken you believe Claire and I fell in love at first sight. It sounds like a romantic story but it isna the whole of it. When we met Claire was… promised to another and she loved him. She spent her first several months in Scotland -- even after we marrit -- trying to get back to him.”  _

 

_ “Non!”  _

 

_ “Oui!” Jamie laughed at Fergus’s shock. “I was a lovestruck fool from the moment I laid eyes on her. I wanted her desperately, just as you feel for Marsali. But I had her only because she had no other choice. I was her best way out of a bad situation -- squeezed betwixt Randall and the MacKenzies. So what hope had I that this marriage of convenience could last?” _

 

_ “What changed?” _

 

_ “I gave her a true choice and let her know I supported her right to make it. She was safe from all threats -- the English and the Scots couldna touch her. I took her back to… the place that led to the other man in her heart, gave her the means to go straight to him if she so desired. I set her free.”  _

 

_ “And she picked you.” Fergus sighed. Jamie’s smile was brilliant.  Each day since milady’s return, he looked more and more like the man Fergus remembered from his youth. Air, water and Claire was all he’d ever need.  _

 

_ “That was the day we were truly marrit in both our hearts. When our union became as real for her as for me. I once told her I wished I had been able to fight him face to face, to prove I was the better man.  I would have beaten a thousand men for the right to claim her. But if I had, I would’ve always wondered if she was really with me of her own free will. The fact that she was… It made all the difference to us.  That connection is why she came back once she knew for sure I was alive. Marsali is much younger than you are. Her life was miserable at Balriggin. Laoghaire barely even let her out of the house and they were always fighting.” _

 

_ “I love her, milord!” Fergus assured him. _

 

_ “Then why did you treat your courtship like a shameful secret as if you didna want to be seen with her or she with you?” Jamie countered. “You must stand tall and strong for the woman you love. You didn’t respect her or her family enough to court her in the open. Instead you snuck around behind my back and Laoghaire’s. I am proud of the man you are, Fergus. But this wasna well done of either one of you. Weddings should be times of joy, not some slapdash, half done affair. You must give her the chance to choose you openly, because she loves you and no’ because you gave her a way out of Balriggin. You already ken how hard life can be -- you’ve been a fighter your whole life but marriage and children will test you in ways you canna possibly imagine. You each should know you can count on the other for support. Come what may.”  _

 

Shaking in Jamie’s arms, wrist throbbing and soaked to the skin, Fergus knew he had failed Marsali and their children. He couldn’t support them. Henri-Christian was almost killed by two thoughtless boys throwing him into the creek to see if he would float or sink. Roger Mac saved him while Fergus, off feeling sorry for himself, was nowhere to be found. Marsali would be better off with a new husband, someone who could protect Henri-Christian.  He knew he couldn’t provide for his family in these rugged Carolina woods. He was no farmer, no mountain man. Ill equipped and one-handed, he couldn’t shoot a gun or harvest crops or raise livestock. 

 

Marsali would never leave him were he alive. He was doing them a favor by leaving her a widow. She was beautiful and would remarry and be cared for with someone who could give her more than he.  Milord had no idea what it was like to know that a better life awaited his wife and children in a future that didn’t include him. 

 

Fergus said as much to Jamie who, to his absolute surprise (and not a little hurt), laughed. He laughed until he shook, until tears ran down his face and then he was crying, hard, wracking sounds coming from that huge, crumpled Scot. Too late, Fergus remembered how ill Claire was, that even now she could be gone. 

 

“I know exactly how ye feel, ye wee gommeral.”  Jamie told him when he got himself under control. “Where the hell do ye think Claire has been, and Brianna both these twenty years past?” Jamie glanced up and away into the distance and then slowly told him the whole story. Not about the way Claire had been safely transported back to the man she’d been promised to so many years ago, but the general gist of it. 

 

“So why stop me from doing the best thing for my family, too?” Fergus said.  

 

“You dinna ken what the future holds, Fergus, no matter how convinced ye are that things will happen a certain way. I should never have presumed I understood God’s plan.  There wasna a day -- a single hour -- that went by that I didna bitterly regret what I had done. Nor a single moment of Brianna’s life that Claire didna wish for me to have been there by her side for the whole of it-- the good and the bad.  Claire found a safer place to live but she had no life with her other husband. My daughter was loved by that man but knew nothing of her heritage or family. She didn’t know she had aunties and cousins and uncles aplenty, she never knew she had brothers.” Fergus’s eyebrows rose at the plural.  “Oh aye, I ken a lot about what it is to want a better life for your children and the sorrow of leaving them.” Jamie filled Fergus in as succinctly as possible. 

 

“Do ye ken you are the only one of my children I have watched grow from boy to man?”  Jamie said quietly. “I ken exactly what ye thought you were doing just now in the water; what you hoped you’d accomplish. But, God, Fergus, it isna so simple. Marsali may move on but, perhaps like Claire, she’ll be heartbroken and never find the same happiness again.”  Fergus grunted. ‘And I rarely tell ye so, but you could no’ be a better father to your children, Germain especially. The twinkle in his eye exactly like yours. He’s sly and too clever by half. Yer the only man I ken that’s able to stay one step ahead of him and it grieves me deeply to imagine anyone but you showing him how to be in the world. The girls love you dear and you’ve the gentlest touch wi’ them. And I ken you love  Henri-Christian enough to die for him. The question is whether you love him enough to live for him, too.” 

 

“When I look at Henri-Christian all I can think of are the children Madame Elise found in France for the customers. Men of depravity who found them… amusing. Then I am back there again. A brothel boy, granted a miracle when you took me from that hell; and just when I thought I was safe, finding myself in the hands of Randall, screaming. I feel unworthy of Marsali and of them, a dirty street urchin, once more, with no prospects. I am nothing and no one again.  I can’t stand the thought of Henri-Christian, of someone doing… hurting… taking---” Fergus couldn’t finish. 

 

“And then the words jam in your head and repeat themselves over and over again, aye?” Jamie watched as Fergus nodded absently. “Have ye ever told your wife your story? All of it?” Jamie asked quietly. 

 

“Non.” 

 

“Perhaps, mon fils, it is time to let them out -- those words that get stuck in your throat. Right now I think they are choking you, and ye canna breathe.” Jamie put his hand on Fergus’. “Those many years past, when I did give you and Marsali my blessing, it was because I could see that she truly loved you as much as you loved her.  Even though she was young, ye’d both been tested on that passage and your union would be strong. Let her be your strength today. Death isna the only way to give you both a fresh start if that is what is for the best. You may go separate ways or move forward together but please dinna… go without talking to her, Fergus. The printing press is in New Bern, just waiting for a printer. It is yours if ye want it. But you’ll give her the choice as ye did before ye wed. Promise me.” 

 

It was time. Fergus had given himself a week to think it over, to work up his courage. He could leave her and the children in New Bern and go north, set up the press in Philadelphia under a new name. She could say she was a widow and find a new husband. Begin again. He didn’t want to give her up or the children. He’d found his will to live but he owed her the whole truth and after that it would be up to her. 

 

“Mother Claire felt well enough to be in her garden today,” she said coming to stand next to him in the quiet stillness of the night. 

 

As opening salvos went, it wasn’t terribly interesting but she had to start somewhere. The summer was waning and a cool breeze had kicked up. She shivered in the chill. 

 

_ Please touch me, just put yer arm around me and hold me as you used to.  _

 

They’d avoided talking to each other, busy minding the bairns and packing up the cabin in preparation for the move off of the Ridge..   _ At least he’s here; at least he’s alive.  _ They hadn’t talked about it yet and it was burning her up inside. 

 

She didn’t think they could make a new beginning until they’d closed the chapter on their time in Fraser’s Ridge. Even as a child, she never feared confrontation or strong emotion, preferring to get it all out on the table at once to suffering in silence. He used to tell her all the time that it was one of the things he loved most about her, the fact that she spoke her mind. It had been a long time since he’d said anything like that and her heart was growing a little more brittle each day. 

 

He reached his hand out, resting against the porch railing. She’d caught a glimpse of his wrist where the bandage glowed like snow from the reflection of the oil lamp filtering through the window. 

 

“I dinna ken the words.” Her whispered ache brought his eyes sharply to hers and she couldn’t hide the tears swimming in them, making his own start to water. 

 

“Tell me which is worse, not knowing the words or knowing them but not being brave enough to say them?” Fergus shrugged helplessly. 

 

She couldn’t stand the distance one second more and wrapped her arms around his, refusing to let him go. He placed a tentative kiss on her forehead and his arms settled around her. They both sighed, feeling better.

 

“Would you maybe be willing to whisper them, then? Just to me?” Fergus shrugged again. She closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts. “I want to tell you that everything will be fine. That I love you and I have enough strength for both of us right now, and to take yer time and get yourself well. That no matter what it is you need to say, please, just say it. Please, tell me your heart, even when it’s broken, so I can help you put it back together,” Marsali said into his shirt. Fergus held her tighter to him, so tight her own heart squeezed. “But you know all these things already and I dinna ken any new words to help you. Is it Henri-Christian? Can ye no’ stand to -- to --”

 

“No! Marsali, I love him! He is a blessing from God!” Saying it, Fergus realized it was true and felt a wave of relief.  He gently pulled her down to one of the two rocking chairs Jamie had made for them. She could have sat on the other, but he liked her in his lap and he needed to feel her heart beating next to his, hold her against him. It had been more than a week and he knew he needed to tell her what happened, all of it. He just hadn’t known how to begin. 

 

“It was... everything adding up together that became too much for me and I couldn’t tell you. It started when milady was taken by Hodgepile.” Fergus spit at the mention of that blackguard’s name. Marsali smiled. It was such a very Fergus thing to do. “It had been many years since I’d seen milord in such a state.” Fergus rested his head against Marsali’s breast. He could feel how full they were, not hard yet; they had time still before Henri-Christian needed to be fed again. 

 

“When was it? The last time Da looked like that?” Marsali asked.  

 

“Paris. Before the Rising. Only that time it was me. I was the one that needed his protection and he would have willingly died for me. But it was their daughter that didn’t survive.” He felt Marsali tense in surprise. 

 

“I told you about the brothel where I was born?” She nodded and he could feel her bracing herself for what was to come and so he told her. 

 

He found the words, slowly, haltingly in quiet whispers and deep pauses but he got them out. Every single one of them. 

 

“You can’t imagine how... lost milady was, when he was in the Bastille, or perhaps you can. It was how milord looked a few days ago when he thought she was dying.”

 

“As if all the light in the world was gone and he’d blow away in a strong wind.” Marsali said. 

 

“Yes. How I felt, just before I tried to end it.” Marsali barely blinked. So she’d guessed what he’d tried to do. “I wish I could be strong enough for you, for all of you, all the time. The things that happened to me… sometimes I go to a place so dark, no light gets in. I wanted to tell you all of it, so you know. Sometimes I can’t see anything but the blackness; I can’t hear anything but the same words over and over again. I am worthless, useless and small and I am choking, drowning, being smothered by the things in my head and if I could only get them out I’d be able to get some air, enough to rise up, out of that darkness and to the light.”

 

Marsali stroked his hair, whispering Gaelic words of reassurance into his ear.  “Didit help, can you see the way now?” She asked him.

 

Fergus looked at her face, barely visible in the gloam but he could see every sweet line and furrow. 

 

“Oui, and I am swimming to the surface as hard as I can.” 

 

“Take my hand, Fergus, let me help pull you the rest of the way this time.” 


End file.
